A couple years ago, I listened to the Russian Revolution season of Mike Duncan’s podcast Revolutions. Readers might recall that I had a few things to say about the podcast when tsk-tsking Duncan about Marx on profit.

In fact, I think it’s overall a great podcast. And I listened to it again, this time hitting all seasons and not just the one on Russia.

As I listened to how the various revolutions strayed off course, I thought about how their leaders engaged with the population. That is to say, I thought about how the revolutionaries related to the average person in these societies. I especially thought about this in light of the French and Russian Revolutions, two revolutions that featured at least some conception of a society built in the interests of the people as a whole.

Centralized Majoritarianism

Let’s look at two sides of things here. By now, I’m sure regular readers know I object to sectarian forms of leftism and Marxism. At the same time, I also often object to majoritarianism, or the view that majorities in society should be able to impose their wishes on society as a whole.

What gives? Aren’t these, along with perhaps some form of extreme horizontal anarchism, the only real options? Don’t you have to create a society with either a small clique of rulers or one with an elected body that rules by majority? I’m not going to defend extreme horizontal anarchism, am I?

An Alternative?

Well, no, I’m not going to do that. But thanks for asking. And I don’t think you have to choose between just those options.

In short, I think majoritarianism is a problem when small majorities try to come together as a group and impose their wishes on the minority without taking the minority’s viewpoints into account. Furthermore, I think majoritarianism gets worse and worse as you make it smaller and more centralized.

In other words, centralized majoritarianism across all of society is bad, but not awful. It gets particularly bad when you have small ruling groups that can wield nearly absolute power with, e.g., a 3 out of 5 majority. This is, for example, why the Soviet Politburo was such a disaster. It turned into a small group of people that wielded enormous power on the weight of a mere majority of a slightly larger body.

In DSA, in particular, it’s imperative to avoid turning the NPC into a centralized majoritarian org that imposes its will on the org at all levels with bare majorities. Concerns remain even if the NPC runs an open process and takes all views into account. It should still remain reluctant about imposing its will on local chapters.

Why? Because, in most cases, a national body lacks a firm grasp on local conditions. It would be silly, for example, for even an NPC majority to set priorities for local chapters. Because it likely understands very little about what motivates local members. And, hence, what would keep those members engaged and the chapter growing.

Final Thoughts

To be clear, the problem with centralized majoritarianism isn’t some mere moral problem or objection. Centralized majoritarianism tends to produce worse results than, e.g., democratic discussion and modified consensus.

When a majority imposes its will on a minority without attempting to arrive at consensus, it narrows the range of useful perspectives and interests involved. And it often causes the minority to disengage or leave. Thereby, it initiates a negative feedback cycle that weakens the org long term.

The example of Socialist Alternative in the U.S. should serve well to illustrate all these points.

Some leftist, of course, see this. It’s why we have more principled forms of democratic centralism. But centralism doesn’t address the core issue. It only delays the problems. Modified consensus is a far better model than democratic centralism.

And in the rare case when a centralized majoritarian framework actually does produce revolutionary change, I’d argue that the revolution tends to turn to horror. We can, as many leftists often do, examine Revolutionary France or Russia for examples of that.